


an absence of green

by lacquer



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Epistolary, F/F, Gardens & Gardening, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Apocalypse, Sharing a Bed, War, bumped up the rating after edits, but hopeful?, enemies to lovers if you squint, i think that's it but tell me if i've missed something, implied/referenced PTSD, past major character death, unidentified amounts of lore, vaguely also, vaguely instructive sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-22 19:29:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21307394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacquer/pseuds/lacquer
Summary: After the end of the world, Hansol is left with a garden.
Relationships: Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Lee Chan | Dino
Comments: 12
Kudos: 66
Collections: JUKEBOX ROUND 3: SEVENTEEN X HOZIER





	an absence of green

**Author's Note:**

> Written for seventeen's jukebox, song: Wasteland, Baby! I think this song has a really hopeful vibe to it, despite it being about the end of the world. And of course, lesbians, because what else could I write for hozier? Specifically thinking of the lines: _And the stance of the sea / And the absence of green / Are the death of all things that I've seen and unseen / Are men but the start of all things that are left to do?_ which is also where the title comes from (though i've pulled inspiration from the entire song, if I'm being honest).
> 
> Thank you so much to the mods for putting this on, all of my love to you all <3 Additional thanks to aise for making an amazing playlist, I still can't figure out how to link it, but find it on twitter!!
> 
> Some notes: there are some pretty heavy themes in here, and I've tried to treat them as sensitively as they deserve, but if you see something in the tags that might upset you, please take care of yourself first.

_We cannot sleep too far from disaster zones. I saw a tornado once_

_in my own front yard, and slept through hurricanes, knelt during earthquakes._

_Did I pray, did I ask for something then? I only held my breath._

_When later asked,_ Are you OK?_ I said, _Everything is temporary.

-"Introduction to Disaster Preparedness", Jeannine Hall Gailey

_ Dear Hansol, _

_ I can’t believe I’m writing this. I know we both said writing last letters was morbid, but I guess I can’t resist the chance to call you an idiot one more time. Just yesterday you decided to test the limits of your new arm by jumping off a cliff onto a moving airship. I’m pretty sure the strain almost separated it from your torso. _ _ Idiot. _ _ You’re knocked out on the best painkillers we have right now and I’m sitting here to make sure you won’t do something even more stupid when you wake up. We managed to get onto the ship but you’re going to be out of commission for a month at least. God. Never do that again or I’ll actually kill you. _

_ Anyway. _

_ Seeing you like that, laid out on the stretcher, it made me realize how much we don’t have. There’s no reassurance that I won’t die tomorrow or the day after, and if that’s going to happen, I want to say a few things first. _

  
_ 1\. You’re my best friend. I’ve said it before, but since I won’t be around to say it anymore, I’m putting it down here. Don’t forget that I love you. Stay alive._

* * *

It came from the East.

When the end of the world came, it swept across the globe like the first shimmer of dawn. It was a gentle ending. Better than they deserved. One by one, without explanation, every human cruelty powered by magic shut itself off and refused to start again. 

There was confusion, at first. Hansol had been waiting at the Morning Stars' headquarters, ready to be sent out again, when the notice came that the war had paused. She had spent a week just wondering, waiting for orders, for information, for any sign that the war still bared its teeth. 

Nothing came.

Slow as the melt of frost in the spring, the realization that there _ would _be no word spread among them.

Her squad disbanded one by one, people simply walking out the door. When no word came of them, the people remaining at base left as well. There was no corps-wide announcement, no grandiose declaration of peace. The war halted in its tracks and dissolved without its weapons, its transportation, its means of communication.

She’s not quite sure when people started calling it the end of the world, but the description rings true. The war had left major cities in ruins, and the absence of magic made the rest of them nearly unlivable. Life as she had known it was over.

There is not a lot she remembers clearly from that first week of silence, except for this:

She had been at a small party, the atmosphere cautiously alive. It was an event held by the Morning Stars, on base and in a cramped common room. Someone had broken out their stash of vodka, and put on dance tunes written ten years before Hansol was even born. Synthetic brass and guitar vibrated through her ribcage, counterpoint to the tentative laughter she could hear from the middle of the room. 

She was standing in a corner, content to wait until Joshua arrived before heading to the slow-building dance floor, when she caught the eye of a stranger in the doorway. It was odd for two reasons. 

One, that he was a stranger at all. Hansol prided herself in knowing every face at headquarters, could name each and every member of the staff on sight.

Two, he was in uniform. Everyone at the party, in silent agreement, had dressed in casual clothes, a far cry from their normal uniform, darker than a raven’s wing. 

When she looked at him, the man gestured towards her, beckoning her closer. Hansol walked across the room, ducking a particularly enthusiastic rendition of Bop to the Top as she went. 

When she reached the man, he bowed briefly before reaching into his pocket for something.

“Pardon to interrupt, but are you Chwe Hansol?”

“I am, and who are you?” 

The man nodded, and offered her a letter. It was an official notice, stamped in red. Hansol’s stomach dropped.

“I’m Sargent Park. I regret to inform you,” _ No. _ “that Hong Joshua,” _ Please. _ “perished in the course of his last mission, heading back to headquarters. Upon his request, his body was burned and the ashes have been delivered to your quarters, along with a package.”

The world spun under Hansol’s feet. Suddenly, there didn’t seem to be much worth celebrating. She’s not sure what she said then, only that the words were enough to make the Sargent go away.

Around her, the party kept dancing, and Hansol’s world ended for a second time.

* * *

_2\. You know what’s next. I don’t have anything important left to give you except for one thing. The garden. I haven’t been back in ages, and I know that my family has long since left the area. It’s yours, and since you’re only reading this because I’m dead, you can’t argue with me anymore. I’ve asked for a map to be enclosed with this letter; I know you’ll make good use of it._

* * *

So. After the end of the world, Hansol is left with a garden.

Of course she is left with more than that. Her time in the Morning Stars had given her six dozen scars, an arm made entirely of metal, and five years of backpay, but none of those has been helpful after then end of the world.

The garden isn’t exactly helpful either, but at least it's something. 

It’s not what she expected to come out of the war with, but Joshua had insisted. He insisted far past his death, in fact; when his ashes were handed to Hansol, a map and a letter had been included with them. Upon reading them, Hansol gritted her teeth and tried not to cry. Failed. Started packing.

The trip to get to the garden is more trouble than it’s worth, really. No mage dares to power so much as a ground car, let alone the serpentine maglev trains that used to stitch together every edge of the country. They sit abandoned on train tracks, enormous silver skeletons that nature refuses to claim.

That leaves Hansol on foot for the most part. She makes her way north, bartering protection for places in caravans. Her age gets her a couple looks, but a show of her metal arm or her scars is usually enough to get people to back down. The ones that don’t, get a first-hand demonstration of why she had survived the war mostly intact.

On the coast, three days away from the destination marked on her now well-worn map, Hansol takes a moment to breathe in the salt air. Here on the cliffs it takes wings of its own, rushing about the caravan like a flock of birds. The wind smells like seaweed left from the last high tide, baking in the sun. Far away she can hear a flock of seagulls, calls echoing off the cliffs.

One of the other caravan members walks up beside her, stretching out her forearms. Hansol looks sidelong and the motion and almost smiles. Minghao is one of the better parts of the trip so far, banding together with Hansol when one of the other guards tried to start hoarding food.

She’s pretty sure Minghao is a mage and therefore Hansol’s sworn enemy, but she hasn't volunteered the information and Hansol hasn't asked. Both of them know the value of silence. She waves at her instead, and points toward the distant mountains.

"I think we're getting close."

Minghao smiles at her, a twist of the lips like a curling vine. “You, maybe. I’ve got a while to go yet.”

“I’ll miss traveling with you all.” Hansol spares a glance towards the caravan, a motley assortment of horses, hand wagons, and a single electric car, more than two decades old. It hasn’t been an easy journey, but the company has been nice if nothing else.

Minghao doesn't touch her (Hansol’s not exactly proud of how she reacted the first time she did) but she does step a little closer. “Once you find your garden, come visit me. I'll keep you a place at our table.”

Hansol keeps her head still, and hums. It's not quite agreement. 

Minghao has told her of her village, tucked away in the mountains, a place where the water runs so clear it could be mistaken for glass. Her family lives among the pines and the snow, coaxing a living from the forest.

Hansol can only imagine such a place so clean. It has been months since she last boarded an airship, and she thinks there is still ash beneath her fingernails.

Far, far away the sun is almost touching the horizon, a great unblinking eye streaking gold over their heads. Beneath it, gilded green and orange is the mountain she’s heading to. It looks vibrant, lush with plant life. It looks like a dream.

She’s almost there.

When Hansol gets to the mountain itself, it’s not that hard to see where she’s going. There’s just one road leading up its slope, a dirt path only wide enough for a single person. She waves goodbye to the caravan, hitches up what supplies she’s managed to procure in a small hand cart, and starts walking.

The road gets smaller as she walks farther up, plants reclaiming the edges of it. The sharp scent of crushed grass blooms from beneath her feet.

It takes half the remaining day to get to the house, distances that seemed small on the map unspool into hours of travel. She hadn’t accounted for the vertical. Rounding the last corner she stops, breath leaving her in a small, wounded noise.

Joshua didn’t tell her it was beautiful.

Hansol hasn’t seen many beautiful things in her life. Her teen years were spent alternating between choking on battle ash and lounging around the barracks, waiting to be sent out again. Joshua had joked about it on their downtime, had told her about the beautiful things they would see when the world was no longer tearing itself to pieces.

He’s made good on his promise tenfold. 

The garden sprawls out in front of her, rolling out like a tapestry woven of plants. Every shade of green Hansol has ever imagined waits here, lazy with sunlight. There are winding paths through the lush growth, snaking out to reach the middle of the garden, where a house sits.

There are vines choking its windows. The shutters are falling off. The roof looks like it leaks. It's probably buried under an inch of dust. She loves it.

_ Fuck you too, Josh, _she thinks. _ Of course you’d know what to give me. _

And then, quieter. _ Miss you. _

The garden waits before her, and Hansol walks forward. She has work to do.

It takes a month, but Hansol manages to renovate the entire house back into something resembling livable. The process is not without its setbacks. Most of them stem from the fact that the house has stood empty for an indeterminably long time.

When she gets up to the roof, she finds tiles missing, and a week later, in the first rainstorm of summer, she becomes intimately acquainted with where they leak. The vines on the house had cracked open some of windows leaving them open to drafts at night, and that wasn’t even starting on the garden.

She’s not sure what happened to it, but garden was a mess. It still is, if Hansol is being completely honest. There are some parts so overgrown with weeds that it’s impossible to determine what was originally planted there. The paths sometimes disappear entirely beneath choking vines, and she trips more than once.

The solid efficiency of the battlefield gets her nowhere against the soft loam of the garden. Her legs acquire bruises all up her shins from falling in the dirt.

She spends the summer repairing the house and acquainting herself with how to get food around the area. Foraging becomes her new best friend. She doesn't know more than the wilderness skills taught in basic, they’re enough to survive on. 

If nothing else, Hansol has gotten very good at surviving.

* * *

  
_ 3\. Make some new friends. I don’t want you to be lonely._

* * *

In the light of day, any sadness she carries tucks itself away, becomes something she can brush aside and ignore.

What she can’t control is what happens at night.

_ Magic, a razor’s edge. The endless void beneath her jump. Her arm falling away from her body. Joshua’s eyes, a million miles away. Pain. She’s trying, moving, but— _

And Hansol wakes up, a scream still wound around her tongue. Her hands are made of ice, and her hair is tangled with sweat.

She lays there in her bed for a minute, just breathing. She chokes down a sob and then, when she realizes that no one is around to hear her, cries. There is no one to to hear her. There is no one at all.

Joshua's bed had been right above her own in the barracks. Whenever Hansol woke from a nightmare, breath a bitten off gasp, he had been there, curling around her back like the warmest kind of shield. No matter how good she got at waking silently, somehow he was always there, 1.7 meters of tangible comfort. 

When her hands don’t stop shaking, she throws on a jacket and heads outside. There is weeding to be done. The plants won’t care if she’s crying.

Summer is a kind season on the mountain. Hansol slowly spends more time in the garden simply for the joy of it. Plants live and die beneath her fingertips. She finds a little bookshelf in the house that has, among other things, a gardening section. Slowly, the garden blooms. A very small part of her heart, neatly forgotten for years, does as well.

And then one day, the morning after autumn’s first frost, something changes.

There is a woman at the edge of the garden. Hansol’s not sure when she arrived, only that her gaze is like a hawk's, sharp and clear with focus. Pruning and weeding had occupied Hansol’s attention for a while, but when she took a break, there she was: a lithe figure standing in the forest's shadow, watching.

Hansol hasn’t seen another person since she first started living here, so she does the obvious thing: she goes to say hello. 

The woman doesn’t move as Hansol walks closer. She waits until she’s within conversation distance and waves at her. “Hi! I haven’t seen you around here before.”

The woman purses her lips. She has black hair pulled back in a tight braid and is wearing close-fit leather. She looks just the wrong side of dangerous, but when she speaks, her voice is soft, nearly lilting. “I used to visit this place before…” 

She trails off, but Hansol can hear what she doesn’t say. _ Before the end of the world. _It’s almost surprising to hear it implied. After moving out here, Hansol had forgotten—as much as she could, really—that the world had ended. And what did the end of the world mean? That magic had revolted? That the cities were unlivable? That the war had finally killed enough people to be considered “over”?

Hansol’s world ended when she was handed a box containing the ashes of her best friend. Anything after was simply a formality. 

She waves a hand at the house. “I’ve been staying here for a couple months now. If you don’t mind me asking, how were you connected to it?”

There’s a pause, and the woman asks, “Before I answer that, could you tell me who you are?”

Hansol pauses in return and just looks at her. There’s a worn spot at her hip where a holster of some sort used to rest, and her posture is balanced. Ready for a fight. She's compact in a way that speaks of muscles hard won and well used. She’s not sure what exactly, about all of that, makes her speak up, but when she says, “I’m Chwe Hansol. Hong Joshua’s best friend,” her voice is steady.

The woman’s eyes widen and she takes a step forward. “I know him. I’m Lee Chan, I attended the same school as Joshua. Where is he?”

The words hit like a blow to the chest, and Hansol takes a step back. She’s never had to… She’s never had to say it out loud before. 

It feels like chewing glass, but she manages to get out, “He’s dead.” 

“He’s what?” Chan’s shoulders drop abruptly, as if she had suddenly been handed the weight of the world. Her voice is a whisper. “He couldn’t be.”

“I haven’t scattered his ashes yet.” Hansol says. There’s a stumbling thing in her ribcage, and it howls at the unfairness of having to tell someone else about the grief she has kept so wounded-animal close for months.

“Could… I see them?”

Hansol sighs. “Come inside.”

Joshua had wanted his ashes to be scattered by the sea. The entire trip to the mountain Hansol had contemplated going through with it, opening the steel box and letting his body fly into the water. She hadn’t though. It’s a fucked up instinct, one that keeps Joshua’s uniform hanging in her bedroom closet, keeps the box of ashes near the fireplace, as if losing them would mean letting go of his memory too. 

When she shows the box to Chan, the other woman stares at it for a long moment. Time vanishes within the house. Hansol hasn’t given herself time like this to really _look_ at what remains of him, because she knows what would happen. What is happening. Grief slides up behind her teeth and smothers her. It’s like choking on cotton, like swimming in ice. Something awful and permanent. Awfully permanent.

This is why she had kept moving, kept busy. Standing here, with a woman she barely knows, there’s no escaping the reality of the situation.

Minutes slips like water between her hands, and when she blinks again, Chan is looking up at her. “Thank you for showing me.” Her voice cracks. “I hope that he- I hope that he died well.”

“As well as anyone could have.” Hansol replies. Thinking about Joshua makes her think of his letter, which is enough to prompt her to ask, “Why were you coming up here, anyway? Do you need a place to stay?”

Chan pauses for a second. She looks almost surprised, though Hansol can’t fathom why. “I don’t…” 

“You don’t have to.” Hansol says. It comes out just a little uncertain. “But there’s a couch if you want it.” They’re in the living room, and she waves a hand at said couch. It’s olive green and looks lumpy, but the one time she fell asleep on it, she woke up surprisingly well rested.

“I’ll think about it.” Chan says, and stops.

Hansol isn’t sure what made her offer to share Joshua’s garden with a near stranger, or what kept her pressing the issue. Maybe it was the way Chan looked like the war was still in her bones. Maybe it was the punched-out noise she had made at the sight of Joshua’s ashes, a mirror to the one Hansol had made three months ago. Maybe she just wants another person around.

Whatever the reason, she also knows when to stop pressing. “I’ll be here if you change your mind.”

“Yeah.” Chan looks at her again, eyes dark and indecipherable. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

And then she leaves.

It’s approximately 2 in the morning, three days later, when Hansol wakes up. For once, it’s not because of a nightmare. There’s someone knocking at her door. 

When she goes to check it, cold air hits her in the face, and rustles through her hair. Outside is Chan, hair half undone from her braid. It looks like she’s been walking for a while. 

“Is that offer still open?”

Hansol opens the door a little wider. “Why don’t you come in.” 

* * *

  
_ 4\. Keep smiling, ok? Even if we lose this war. Or if we win it._

* * *

The next morning, Chan walks into the kitchen just as Hansol is preparing breakfast. Another round of nightmares had left her awake early. Thankfully she hadn’t screamed. 

Making breakfast is a nice distraction. She doesn’t have any eggs, but a flock of wild geese had settled nearby two days ago, and she had taken one of them down, so she does have some meat to go along with the vegetables she had picked from the garden. 

(She still has bruises from that adventure. Geese were apparently ready and willing to fight and Hansol, weaponless, had fared far poorer than she expected.)

She’s changed into a short sleeve shirt to cook, and her metal arm is bared. When she turns around, Chan’s face does something very complicated. Hansol’s not exactly sure what expressions she flickers through, but the one she settles on is surprised. 

“Good morning.” Hansol waves at her with the hand not holding her cooking knife. “How did you sleep?”

“‘Morning,” Chan replies. “And well, thank you. How long have you been up?”

Hansol debates deflecting, but honestly there’s no point to it. “A couple of hours now. I got up before the sun.”

“Ah.” Chan says. “Do you need help with the cooking?”

Hansol shakes her head. “I’m about halfway done. Do you want some tea?”

“Sure.” The morning sunlight filters in through the kitchen and Hansol picks up a pair up mugs from the cabinets and pulls out her favorite tea blend. 

It’s silent as she boils water and set the pot to steeping. The feeling is not as uncomfortable as it could be: Hansol has been living with it for months now. Still, it itches at her skin a little as she rummages around for cups. 

When she walks back into the living room, she says, “I don’t have any milk or sugar, sorry.”

Chan gives her a look, and shakes her head, taking the teacup handed to her. “Don’t worry about it, thank you.” She looks up over the rim of it, and for the first time, Hansol sees her smile. The motion tugs at the corners of her eyes, and dimples pop up beneath her cheeks. It’s… surprisingly cute for someone who carries herself like an unguarded blade. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

Hansol feels something that’s not quite a smile pull at her own mouth. It sits oddly, and she covers by pouring the tea. They’re standing around the living room table, chairs pushed to the side. “So where have you been since it all ended?” she asks. 

Chan hums, low and a little rumbly. “I’ve been all over. Helping out around the cities mostly, before I got word that the roads were still clear, even if maglev was out. I wasn’t sure if anyone would be here when I came to look, but this is the first place I’ve been since leaving the cities.”

“That sounds like interesting work.” The words feel awkward in Hansol’s mouth, even though she means them genuinely.

“It was, I just don’t think I could have stayed. There’s so much out there to see, you know?”

Hansol does, to some extent. She had seen half of the world on deployment, but there had never been enough time to _ experience. _If not for the garden, she might have stayed with the caravan, slowly making her way around the world. She still wants that some days. If she left though, no one would be around to tend Joshua's memory. “Yeah, I understand. There’s so much out there that we couldn’t stop to see before, and now…”

“Now we finally have the chance.” 

Hansol nods and takes a sip of tea. “Have you always wanted to travel?”

“_Yes.” _ The answer comes back quickly, nearly tripping out of Chan’s mouth. “I need to see the world. I’m going to. We couldn’t before, right? But now…” She waves a hand, as if to encompass the horizon. It’s the first bit of real enthusiasm Hansol has seen from her, excitement making her movement sharper, a little more unguarded.

And then, at the tail end of her gesture, just as she is about to draw her hand back, sparks snap from her fingertips like falling rain.

Immediately Chan flinches back, hand clutched to her chest. She’s frightened-animal tense, ready to bolt. Hansol can't quite help her own reaction either: her metal arm jerks up in front of her face, and the teacup she was holding drops to the table. 

The sound of shattering porcelain in loud in the space between them. Neither one of them move for a second.

Chan breathes out. "It's a good time to say, I suppose, that I'm a mage."

"Kind of figured that one out." Hansol says. Her hands are shaking. There's an instinct in them, one drilled into her for five years straight. _ Hurt. _

She can taste ash on the back of her tongue. Two years into her deployment, Hansol's squad had been rotated to the front lines, sent out to face the monstrosities that the mages had crafted of magic and metal. They had war dogs the height of Hansol's hip, with jaws strong enough to break bone, and coiling dragons with mouths like lava pits. They were neigh unstoppable weapons, with one weakness. Kill the mage controlling them and the light would flee from their eyes. Hansol is practically wired to notice sparks now, when the difference between finding them and not used to be the death of dozens. 

Now, here in the cabin, the consequences aren't so clear cut. Hansol's arm trembles. “It’s ok, I’m not going to hurt you.”

The words don’t help much, and Hansol honestly can’t blame her for not believing them. Her metal arm creaks as she lowers it slowly, until both of her palms are splayed flat over the wood of the dining room table. Chan watches her, eyes wide. Hansol keeps still. 

There’s a shard of porcelain digging into the meat of her palm, and her joints are trembling faintly, but she doesn’t move. 

It’s probably no more than a minute, but it feels like longer, and Chan finally relaxes. Her hair spills across her shoulder as she tips her head forward. She doesn't take her eyes off of Hansol. “I don’t think you can blame me for doubting you.” 

“No, I can’t.” That was the world they used to live in. “I know.”

“You know?” Chan’s mouth dips into a frown.

Hansol is, if nothing else, honest. “Corporal Chwe Hansol, Third Constellation. I retired.” Retired is a strong word for what she did, but it’s not like anything else fits, either.

Chan tenses anew. “You were part of the Morning Stars.”

Hansol had been conscripted into their ranks, unwilling and unasked for. That doesn’t change the truth of her involvement. “I was.”

“Then why aren’t you-” She cuts herself off, stepping back with an abruptness that jars in the house’s stillness. Hansol gets up too, sweeping the sharps of her teacup into her palm.

“Why aren’t I trying to kill you?”

Chan laughs, and sweeps a hand through hair. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Hansol waits a moment to see if she’ll say anything else, but she stays silent, staring at Hansol with eyes blown wide. The question hanging in the space between them like an anvil. Hansol takes a moment to appreciate the fact that she’s allowed to answer questions now, instead of just taking orders, before she replies. “Because the world has ended. There’s nothing tying us to our former loyalties anymore. You said it yourself, I _ was _ part of the Morning Stars. It’s gone now, they aren't around to be a part of.”

The look Chan gives her is incredulous. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not?” Hansol shrugs, and turns around. Her words are not so much dismissive as they are a tad helpless. She has nothing productive she can add to the conversation anymore; the other woman will either believe her, or she won’t. She can’t prove her point except with time.

Chan pauses and says, “_ Why not… _” It’s more to herself than to Hansol. 

“I’ll be here if you need anything, Chan. There’s more tea if you want it.” And with that, Hansol leaves her to it, heading into the kitchen. She has a breakfast to finish.

Chan takes her cup of tea with her to the couch, and Hansol does her the courtesy of pretending she doesn’t exist for a while, moving around the house and eventually going outside to do some weeding. 

When she comes back in, Chan is tense as a coiled spring, watching her with dark eyes. Hansol goes to make lunch.

For every hour that Hansol pretends everything is normal, Chan winds just a bit tighter, until Hansol thinks she might snap and just leave the house entirely. When Hansol offers her some lunch, she takes it, watching until half of Hansol’s plate is gone before starting on her own. 

Finally, early in the evening, as Hansol attempts to clumsily stitch together a tear in her pants, Chan gets up from the living room table and walks to the couch. She curls up there, with her back to the room. Hansol leaves her to it and gets ready for bed. 

Before she goes to sleep though, Hansol leaves an extra blanket out near the living room. Actions spoke louder than words, after all.

The next morning, Hansol is up early again, and decides to try and complete some projects that had been on her to-do list for quite some time. The morning's fog is still rolling around her ankles when she gets outside. The garden is spread out before her, and beyond it are the surrounding mountains.

The call to keep walking, straight out until she can see them all is tempting, but she resists. Instead of giving in, she takes a deep breath, and begins her work for the day.

It’s midafternoon by the time she’s stopped by someone saying, “You’re doing it wrong.” Hansol looks up from where she’s trying to wire some runes into a better shape to conduct electricity. Something has been eating her tomatoes recently, and she’s trying to make the poor woman’s version of an electric fence.

Standing there, posture steel-spined, Chan looks at her.

Hansol raises an eyebrow. “Show me how to do it right, then.”

Chan huffs, and steps forward, taking the tools surprisingly gently from Hansol’s hands. “You’ve got to be kind with it, otherwise the magic will just run away. There’s no way to force magic anymore. Maybe there wasn't ever.” Under her hands the runes shift and waver, becoming solid light, dense enough to touch.

Hansol watches with fascination, noting how steady her grasp is, how delicate her fingers are. When Chan looks up at her, Hansol doesn’t look away, just smiles.

It’s small, and a little tight, but it’s there. 

Chan never says anything about it, but she stays. The couch gains a permanent pillow and blanket tucked into its corner, and the house slowly shrugs off its fog of silence. It’s nice having someone around, but Hansol sees the way Chan looks towards the horizon. It's the longing of the ocean to the moon, following helplessly, bound to leave.

It's a month into autumn when Hansol gives into the inevitability of house repairs. The roof still leaks a little when it rains, and with the weather taking a turn for the worse, they can’t afford to put off fixing it any longer. 

She recruits Chan for a day, and they drag themselves up a ladder, some salvaged metal sheets in hand. It’s not a perfect solution, but they’ll do to keep the water out. 

They manage to replace all of the cracked tiles, and she’s halfway back down the ladder again, when something in her arm _ snaps. _She makes it to the ground but not much further, arm transforming from a part of her, to an unmoving hunk of metal within seconds.

Its gears creak, sparks biting straight through her ribcage, grounding through her feet. The feedback briefly overloads her nerves, sending spikes of pain all the way up her spine. She stumbles and knocks into the ladder.

“Hey what a-” Chan, halfway down, jumps off and turns around with annoyance on her lips. She’s faced with the sight of Hansol, clutching her metal arm to her side like a lifeline. “Hansol! What’s wrong?”

“Aftershock.” Hansol grits out, sinking to her knees. “It’ll pass.” The magic in her arm shrieks along its runepaths, pulling on her nerves like a gardener trying to uproot a particularly stubborn weed. She tastes bile. Ash.

Chan drops down beside her, hands fluttering over Hansol’s shoulder. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Not- _ argh _-really.” It’s something that’s happened a couple of times since Hansol got here: without regular maintenance by the Morning Star’s scientists, her arm has begun to collapse on itself. The complex circuits that ran it were falling apart, and taking her nervous system with them. She figures she has a couple of years before it’s completely dead. 

Eventually after what seems like hours but could have been minutes, the pain subsides. Hansol is left panting on the muddy ground. Sweat sticks her clothing to her, and her back has tied itself into knots while she wasn’t paying attention. She feels like she wants to crawl into a hole and die.

Just as she’s about to try and stand up, and hand inserts itself in her field of view. Chan quirks an eyebrow at her and Hansol takes it gratefully, stumbling when she gets on her feet. Quickly, Chan wraps an arm around her side and helps her towards the house.

As they make their way inside, Chan takes a deep breath before saying, “I could try to help you with that, if you want.”

“What?” Hansol asks. There’s a faint haze settled around her head, as if the pain had filtered out the vibrancy of her thoughts. 

“I’m a mage, I've trained for it.” Chan looks her straight in the eye as she lets Hansol down in one of the living room chairs. “Let me help you.”

Hansol weighs that statement for a second, holds it against Chan’s steady gaze, against the month they've spent together, and her slow blooming trust. “Ok. I’m… thank you.”

“It’s no problem. Let me go get some tools.” 

When Chan emerges from the bedroom again, Hansol is still waiting for her, arm leaning on the table. “Is here good?”

“Don’t worry, you’re right where I want you.” There’s a small click as Chan sets down a set of what looks like jewelry pliers and a small bag of rocks, before she bends towards Hansol’s arm. 

Her hands are delicate as she opens it, the creak of metal loud in the sudden quiet. It needs grease, and a kind of maintenance that Hansol hasn’t really been able to do on her own. It’s a precarious position for both of them, Hansol with her arm being pulled apart, Chan with all her attention directed towards fixing it. Chan could kill her easily, from here, a twist of her fingers and the magic would fry her entire nervous system.

Four years into Hansol's deployment, she had faced off against a mage that knew how to cast lightning in sheets. Joshua had shove her face first in the dirt and covered her arm with his entire body, waiting until another squad had killed him before letting her up. The wreckage of that battle had had haunted her for months. Frightening, how easy it was to be burnt from the inside out.

Chan removes another plate from her upper arm, and Hansol takes a deep breath, fighting the urge to run. She doesn't move, though.

She doesn't move.

That evening, instead of going straight to bed, Chan waits until Hansol is safely in her own, lingering in the bedroom doorway as Hansol gets under the covers.

“Are you sure you’re ok?”

Hansol smiles and pulls her blankets tighter over her shoulders. It feels somehow like a betrayal to smile, here in Joshua’s house, but the impulse surfaces nonetheless. “I am, thank you. Goodnight Chan.”

“Sleep well, Hansol.”

There’s a gentle click as her door is shut and Chan returns to the couch. Hansol spends far too long gazing into the dark, trying to calm her racing heart. 

In the end, it’s not even any grand gesture that makes her realize. It's a normal day, both of them preparing for winter, storing food and shoring up the walls to withstand a snowstorm. 

Chan is working on the windows, fixing their incessant drafts when Hansol walks into the room, a question about lunch on the tip of her tongue. Sunlight is falling through the window, and it gilds Chan’s hair as she turns around. Her clothes are work rumpled, and there’s a smear of paint over her cheekbone.

And then, she smiles. 

It’s a smile Hansol wouldn’t have dreamt of seeing, three months ago. The motion curls the corners of her eyes, lights up her whole face, threads her features with warmth—all from simply seeing Hansol. 

_ Oh. _

It knocks the breath out of her all at once, and Hansol is left standing there in the doorway, trying to swallow around a feeling like a thousand flower petals. Chan tilts her head at her, screwdriver in her right hand. “You good?”

“Yeah, I’m—” Hansol coughs. “I’m good. Did you want potatoes or bell peppers with lunch?”

Chan pauses to think for a moment. “Bell peppers, if you’re offering.”

“Can do.” Hansol turns around and resists the urge to bury her face in her hands. This might be a problem.

* * *

  
_ 5\. Is this too many things? Sometimes it feels like I can’t possibly imagine what you’re going to become. You’re going to be amazing. And I’m going to make sure you survive long enough to do so._

* * *

Winter hits with all the force of a sledgehammer taken to marble. In the space of two weeks the weather goes from frosty but clear, to snowing every other day. 

Hansol puts tarps over all of the most delicate plants before the first snow, but still she worries. She spends time by the window in the evenings, staring at the blanket of white. It layers over Joshua’s gift to her, and tries to remind herself to breathe. 

It’s just a garden. It shouldn’t mean so much. And yet, Hansol has been holding onto it with all the strength in her two hands, has poured herself into caring for it, as if that would keep the memory from fading.

His uniform is still hanging in her closet, but she can’t remember how his shoulders used to fill it out. She can’t remember exactly how his laugh sounded, or the way he used to smile. So she spends her evenings by the window, and tries not to forget anything else. It’s not always successful. 

As the weather traps them inside for ever increasing amounts of time, Chan picks up a hobby to keep busy. Hansol had seen the pile of knitting needles in the hallway closet, but hadn’t spared them a second thought. 

Chan, apparently, had spared more than one. Hansol walks into the living room one day to find her three rows into what looks like a scarf. At her approach, Chan looks up. There’s strands of blue yarn tangled around the tips of her needles, and Hansol thinks she can see a hole already forming in one of the corners. Still, Chan looks strangely pleased with herself.

“I didn’t know you knit.” Hansol says, tilting her head at the tangle of thread. 

“I don’t, really.” Chan says. And then she grins, looking at the mess. “I’m absolutely terrible at it.” 

“You kind of are, yeah.” Hansol sits down beside her in the one yarnless area of the couch and pokes her shoulder. 

Chan knocks a casual elbow into her side, and Hansol bites down a grin. “You didn’t have to say that, but thank you. It’s… nice, to fail at something.”

“What do you mean?"

Chan tries to untangle the yarn with one hand while keeping the rest of it from coming off her needles. “It’s like… when half the world wants to kill you, there’s no time to mess up. If you mess up, you’re dead. This is just yarn. If I mess up, all I get is a knot.”

The reasoning chimes in Hansol’s head like bells, hitting something she hadn’t even articulated to herself, let alone considered speaking aloud. She gets it. When she gets up in the morning to make breakfast, she doesn’t have to worry about losing her other arm. If the roof continues to leak, no one will die. “_Oh. _Yeah, I get you. Need any help?”

Chan kicks the majority of the tangled ball of yarn in her direction. “You can fix that. I’ll continue knitting.” 

“_Trying to knit._” Hansol can’t quite help but teasing. 

“Trying very hard, thank you.” Chan gives her a faux annoyed glace. “Is that the sound of untangling I hear?”

Hansol laughs, full out. “Of course. Anything for you.” She shuts her mouth around anything else she'd like to say, and gets to untangling. 

Winter is cold and getting colder, sinking its teeth into the night and refusing to let go come morning. It gets harder to get out of bed, and moving around the house becomes one constant ache. Hansol feels old, like her joints had been aged prematurely, like someone had come and replaced her cartilage with broken glass. She survived jumping off of cliffs for five years, and now her body is made up of too many half healed scars to be perfectly ok in the cold.

“I am going to die here. Where did the sun go? I want it back.” She mutters to Chan one particularly difficult morning, half folded over the dining room table. 

Chan makes a vaguely sympathetic noise and nods her head, getting breakfast together in the other room. “Would some potatoes help?”

Hansol makes a noise of agreement. “Some potatoes would be great.”

A couple of minutes later and Chan hands her a plate of potatoes spiced with thyme and rosemary, still crispy from the pan. “Here you are.”

Hansol raises her head, winces, and puts it back down. When she tries again, it’s a slower, with a careful hand to her neck. “Thank you.”

As she eats, Chan watches her, a worried slant to her mouth. “This can’t continue.”

“It gets better as I warm up.”Hansol returns. She’s not going to pretend to be fine, with Chan. It would be a waste of both of their times, and insulting besides. There’s another part of her, too, that enjoys the concern, but she’s trying to ignore that. It's still strange how much she wants to peel back her layers around Chan, not unlike handing her a knife and saying _here, keep this safe._

"It's taking longer and longer for that to happen, though," Chan returns. Hansol can't argue with that either. Yesterday, she probably would have been eating breakfast already, been working on some task or another. Maybe she just needs to get another blanket. 

When she says as much, Chan raises an eyebrow. She thinks for a moment, before saying, “Can I try something for a second?”

“Sure, go ahead.” Hansol picks up her fork and startles, just a little, as Chan takes her other hand. A question is on her lips but never reaches the air, as the place their hands are joined starts to burn like an open flame.

Hansol jerks her hand back, fork clattering to the table. “What are you doing?”

Chan twists her lips. Hansol can read the recrimination in her eyes, familiar after watching her knit. Chan hates to fail at anything, no matter the consequences. “Sorry. I thought I had better control over it than that. I’m trying to warm you up.”

“By burning my hand off?”

“No, not— Hold on a second.” Chan takes her hand again. This time, the heat is gentler, a fireplace instead of a bonfire. The ice stabbing into her joints melts slowly, a warmth coming from inside her bones to thaw her from the inside out. It’s like Chan had replaced her blood with hot chocolate, gentle as a good hug.

Hansol shivers, her hand convulsing around Chan’s. When she draws back, the warmth immediately fades. “Oh, I get what you mean now.”

Chan is frowning a little, still. “It shouldn’t fade when I’m not touching you.”

When Hansol rolls her shoulders, it doesn’t hurt quite as much as it did minutes before. She stands up, stretches, and only winces a little. It’s the difference between stretching and having it hurt, and being able to stretch at all. 

The chill is already settling back into her bones, and Hansol can feel her muscles tightening like over-tuned violin strings. “I appreciate you trying, Chan.” 

There’s something just a little bit contemplative in her dark eyes as Chan looks back at her. “No problem. I suppose I’ll have to figure out something a little more long term.”

Hansol nods and shrugs. “I’ll look for some more blankets this evening.”

Hansol does not, in fact, find any blankets. There are a fair amount of extra clothes in the house’s closets, but nothing resembling so much as a summer quilt lies among them. 

She heads to bed, resigned, and pulls up short when she sees Chan, waiting by her bedroom door. She’s dressed down for the night, hair pulled into a loose braid, her own blankets underneath her arm.

Before Hansol can say anything, Chan says, “If I can’t make it long term, I’ll do the next best thing.”

“Which is?” Hansol isn’t so much confused as she is skeptical. Chan probably isn’t suggesting what she thinks, right?

“Let me sleep with you.” 

Nevermind, she’s suggesting exactly what Hansol had been thinking. “You want to…?” She trails off, but the rest of the statement is clear. 

Chan looks at the ceiling for a second, a strange mixture of fond resignation and overwhelming tenderness crossing her face. Hansol tucks the expression close to her heart. It’s a thrilling feeling, knowing that she knows Chan well enough to be able to read her like that, even if she can't always understand the reasoning behind her expressions_. _“This way you’ll stay warm through the night. I can’t have you freezing, I wouldn’t be able to take care of this place on my own.”

Hansol opens the door and gestures her inside. Her heart is beating double time, tongue tripping over itself. “The bed’s not that big, I hope you won’t be too uncomfortable.”

“Trust me,” Chan says, tone wry, “I’ll tell you if I am.”

Hansol is already changed into her sleeping clothes—a double layer of shirts and her thickest pants, all designed for maximum warmth—so she slips into bed. She hopes Chan can’t see her hands shaking as she draws back the covers, but she’s not holding out much hope. Hansol has always felt a little vulnerable around Chan, but it’s worse now as she lies down. She feels almost like she did during their first meeting, the location stripping their relationship of all familiarity. 

Chan just looks at her for a second, an expression flickering over her face like a shadow passing over the moon. Despite all her earlier pride being able to read her, Hansol has no idea what it means. 

Flicking the switch, Chan dims the lights above their heads and walks over to her. When she slips underneath the covers, it’s to throw an arm over Hansol and pull her to the center of the bed. 

Hansol, who had been in the process of wedging herself to the side so that Chan could have more space, blinks at her in the near-darkness. 

Something about the lack of light makes her voice come out as whisper as Chan tugs on her shoulder, arranges them into a more comfortable position. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Chan yawns, and snakes her arm under Hansol’s shirts until her hand is pressed flush against the skin of her stomach. Immediately, warmth burns in her bones, banishing the chill that had already settled in them, even temporarily. “Now go to sleep.”

That is far, far, easier said than done. Chan’s palm has little calluses on it, and shifts every time Hansol takes a breath. There’s a warmth to it, completely separate from the spell, that keeps Hansol tense, waiting for her to move. 

Hansol is sure that Chan can feel her heart racing, can peer straight into her head and pull out the thoughts lingering there. Every few minutes, her attention is caught again by the pressure of her hand, soft but undeniably present. She forces herself to both breathe evenly.

Eventually, suspended in that moment half-lovely with longing, Hansol falls asleep. 

_ Joshua is looking at her. Hansol opens her mouth, about to say something, when she sees the airship rising behind him. There’s a full complement of guns on it, sails crackling with the weight of a mage's power. It's a thousand times bigger than he is, dwarfing his body like a tsunami approaching shore. _

_ It turns, ready to fire. _

_ “Josh!” She yells, but no sound comes out. Joshua doesn’t turn towards the danger. He's smiling, mouthing words she can't quite hear. Hansol runs towards him, frantically gesturing to turn around. _

_ He doesn’t move, raising a hand to wave, casual as anything. Hansol screams and he still doesn't move. Instead, the ground begins to crumble beneath her feet, dropping into the sea below. _

_ One more step and she drops as well. As she looks up, she can see the airship firing, see Joshua’s body jerk once, twice, and still. When she hits the water, she’s still screaming. _

Hansol’s eyes snap open. She’s drowning. 

She can’t move her legs, and there’s something weighing down her arm. She shakes free, feet catching in the water, trying to kick upwards. There’s something ringing in her ears like a bell heard from far away. 

The world wavers. The darkness of deep water suffocates, but there’s something--

Next to her, Chan makes a little noise of distress and rolls off of Hansol’s chest, sparks snapping down her neck. She sounds like she’s in pain, and when Hansol touches her shoulder, it’s tense as a drawn bow. She shakes it, gently. Her shoulder is a live wire, all electric current and humming tension.

“Chan. Wake up.”

It takes only a moment for Chan’s eyes to snap open, and she grabs Hansol’s wrist, so tight her bones grind together. Hansol can't stop herself from crying out. Immediately Chan lets go, as if burned. “Who… Hansol?”

“Yeah, it’s me. You were having a nightmare.”

Chan’s voice is thick with sleep, syllables clumsy with it, but Hansol can still make it out when she says, “Sorry. About waking you and..." She presses her fingertips to Hansol's wrist slow as an unfurling vine, maps where there will surely be a bruise come morning.

“Don’t worry.” Hansol says. “I didn’t really want to be asleep either.”

In the dark, she cannot see Chan at all, but Hansol can almost taste her frown when she says, “Are you cold?”

It’s a question that both deflects and returns to the heart of the issue at once, and because Chan cannot see her, Hansol smiles. It’s easy to want her closer when the sun is up, when she can see Chan take care of the garden with hands that don’t shake. It’s another thing entirely to face her desire in the dark, to feel it when they're inches away in the same bed; the impulse to pull Chan close and soothe her worries pushes at her like water. 

She hadn’t noticed, but even without Chan’s warmth spell, Hansol isn’t that cold. Perhaps it has something to do with her extra shirt. Perhaps it has something to do with the way Chan gives off body heat like a miniature furnace, and the fact that up until a minute ago she had been draped over Hansol like a favorite blanket. 

“I’m pretty good, actually.”

Chan rolls over so that her face is pressed into Hansol’s shoulder. It’s kind of going numb from the pressure, but she’s not going to say anything about that. This time, Chan's hand finds Hansol’s in the dark, two of her fingers wrapped around Hansol's thumb. Immediately the spell starts up again. It's almost hard to notice with the way Hansol's muscles were already jelly. “Go back to bed then, it’s too early.”

And perhaps it’s the time of night, but it’s easy to fall asleep this time, wrapped in Chan’s warmth. 

If Hansol isn’t careful, she could get used to this.

When she wakes in the morning, it’s from a deep sleep. Sunlight is peeking through the curtains, pale but present. The air smells like clean sheets and a little bit of the lavender that hangs in her closet. On her chest, Chan is a warm weight, breathing deep and even. Her fingers are still wrapped around Hansol’s.

Hansol closes her eyes. She matches her breathing to Chan’s and thinks, just for a moment, that she could be content like this forever. 

It’s getting close to the time when Hansol would normally get up, but she doesn’t want to disturb Chan. Winter’s bite is outside the covers, and she’s warm where she is, so she stays still. They don’t have anywhere they need to be. She can stay like this for a while.

Eventually, Chan’s breathing pick up and her fingers tighten their grip. She makes a noise that sounds like “Mmmmphf,” and pushes her head into Hansol’s shoulder. “What time is it?”

Hansol doesn’t have a clock in her room, but from the angle of the sun it’s, “Around 9.”

“Mmmm.” Chan takes a second before rolling over, taking Hansol’s hand with her. “We should probably get up.”

“Probably.” Hansol replies. Neither of them move though.

Several minutes later, Chan rolls over, faces her. “What are we even doing today, anyway?”

“Breakfast?” Hansol asks. 

Chan laughs. It’s still a little fogged from sleep, but the sound is still bright bright _bright_. “Ok, and after breakfast?”

“Whatever you want.” Hansol says. “Though fixing the leak in the bathroom would be a good place to start.”

“Of course,” Chan says. “Exactly what I came here to do.”

They’re said as a joke, but her words are something that Hansol has been wondering for a while now. “Why _ are _you staying here?” Hansol wiggles out from beneath Chan’s body weight so that she can see her eyes. “I don’t understand, you said you wanted to travel.”

Chan hums, and furrows her eyebrows. Her cheek is a little squished from the pillow, crease marks up her temple. “I needed a place, I think. This past year… you haven’t seen what happened to the cities. There’s so much fear there. Even though we can’t be at war anymore, no one has learned how to be at peace, either. I needed somewhere to learn that. You gave me that.”

Some days, it feels like the war is still echoing in Hansol’s heart, a march tempo that never leaves. Any measure of peace she has is hard won, and made all the more fragile by the knowledge of what came before. “You deserve a place to rest.” A second’s pause. “_We _ deserve a place to rest.”

Chan’s eyes are soft, glowing amber in the sunlight. “We do.” 

There’s a moment where it looks like she’s going to say something else. Hansol can see her thinking it, can almost picture her leaning closer, can almost feel Chan’s breath on her lips. She doesn’t move. Neither does Chan. It’s a moment clad in winter’s gold, humming with promise.

Outside, a lone bird chirps out a melody, and the spell unravels. 

It doesn’t leave entirely though. As Hansol slips out of bed, she can see Chan watching her, eyes filled with enough warmth to rival the ice outside.

And so the week goes. They work during the day, and at night, Chan spends time in her bed. 

An unspoken _something_ lingers over them, acknowledged for all they do not set it in words. Nights and nightmares pass them by and Hansol grows used to the way Chan wakes in the mornings—lazily, and often with a knee jammed into Hansol's thigh. Hansol’s mouth curls up inexplicably at the edges at every reminder. 

When something does change, Hansol thinks of it not so much as a break in tension, as a transformation. Like alchemy, nothing destroyed, only reimagined. They aren't doing anything special that evening, but then again, that has never been the point with Chan.

Chan is sitting on the couch with a knitting project in hand. Hansol is pretty sure it's supposed to be a sock, but right now it resembles nothing more than a lumpy tube. Hansol’s feet are tucked underneath Chan’s leg in an attempt to keep warm. 

It had snowed earlier in the day, and the setting sun makes the garden a thing of white edged shadows. Hansol is staring out the window again, watching darkness creep across the ground. 

When she looks over, the tip of Chan’s tongue is poking out of the side of her mouth, and her eyebrows are furrowed at her knitting. She’s beautiful. 

It’s a thought that Hansol has had before, and every time it gets harder not to say it out loud. There’s something about Chan like this, unguarded and soft around the edges, that loosens her tongue and makes her want to get closer. 

This evening, the scent of old dust and rosemary hanging in the air, Hansol stops trying to resist. “You’re beautiful like this, you know.”

“I, what?” Chan looks up at her, head knocked askew. There's something tugging at the corner of her eyes, a little bit like delight.

Hansol quirks her mouth up, both overwhelmingly nervous and heartbeat-steady. “Peace is a good look on you."

Chan raises an eyebrow. Hansol can practically hear her. _Dodging the question. _Hansol grins full out and waits for her move. It takes two to play a game, after all.

"It looks good on you too," Chan returns. She sets down her knitting, and stands up. When she sits down again, it is with her legs bracketing Hansol's thighs. Quite suddenly she's close, close enough that her exhale hits Hansol's lips. 

"Yeah?" Hansol manages to croak out, pulse trembling beneath the skin of her throat. "What do you mean?"

Chan hums a second before she bends over. She picks up Hansol's hands, pressing a kiss to one palm and then the other, disregarding that one is unfeeling metal. Hansol's breath catches. "I mean peace looks good here, the way you put your hands to the earth."

She reaches closer, thumb swiping slowly over Hansol's lips, which part beneath her touch. "It looks good here, when you smile."

She leans up and forward, and Hansol's eyes flutter shut. Carefully, Chan places kisses on each of her eyelids. "It looks good here, the way you look at me unafraid."

Hansol shivers like an oak before a rainstorm, the kind of feel that rattles branch to root, and leaves her aching. Almost unconsciously, she leans forward.

She's thinking of how they were when they met, two strangers on opposite sides of the war but the same side of grief. She’s thinking of the way they were two months ago, with fear an old coat hung in the closet, set aside but not forgotten. She’s thinking of the way Chan’s lips look, wrapped around her name.

And then Chan kisses her and she’s not thinking much at all.

Hansol has fooled around a little before. Had even kissed Joshua once, to their mutual regret. It had been fun, sure, but nothing like this. Kissing Chan is like coming home, not so much building a house as opening the door, finding everything just as she'd left it and yet entirely new at the same time. Hansol smiles into the feeling, flesh hand coming up to rest in her hair, metal hand on her shoulder.

Chan must feel the way her lips curve, because she swats Hansol on the shoulder. That, if anything, just makes her smile harder. Hansol can feel it pulling at the corners of her cheeks, so wide she thinks her gums might be showing. Chan pulls back, amusement on her features.

“Let me take you to bed, again.”

Hansol pushes her face into Chan’s neck, and breathes in. While she's there, she presses a slow kiss beneath her jaw, noting the way Chan shivers. “I’d like that.”

The path to the bedroom is a clumsy one, and they trip more than once, laughing. Hansol fumbles the doorknob and pulls Chan in after her until she’s sitting on her bed, watching Chan standing above her.

There’s a look on her face, like she wants to map every inch of Hansol’s skin, and is simply debating where to start. Hansol tips her head back a little, invitingly. 

That does the trick. Chan raises an eyebrow at her and leans in, kissing her slow and wet. The angle forces Hansol to lean upwards, to chase Chan’s lips with her own. It’s fun, pulling back to press kisses to her throat, down the planes of her chest, until Chan shrugs off her shirt in an effort to get her to continue. 

Her shoulders are scarred by magic, patchy burn marks from spells gone wrong, and Hansol runs wondering fingers over them, traces their lines down to the valley between Chan's breasts. She’s wearing a dark bra, fabric worn after being through the wash several times, and Hansol rubs her flesh thumb over the curves visible through the soft fabric. 

She's beautiful, and Hansol says as much into her neck, whispers as she follows her fingers with her mouth, pulling down her bra, tongue teasing at one of Chan's nipples. It makes her whine, a noise Hansol has never heard come from her lips, so she does it again, slower this time, relishing the way she shudders. 

Too soon, in Hansol's opinion, Chan gets tired of her teasing, pushing back on her shoulders. “At least let me take your shirt off, make this even.”

Hansol grins, hand running along Chan’s arm in appreciation one last time, before she leans back a little. It’s a little awkward, trying to get her sweater off without hitting Chan in the face, but it’s worth it for the touch of her hands along Hansol’s ribs, inching upwards.

She only has a second to consider being self conscious over her body before Chan makes an appreciative noise and moves closer, as if Hansol is water, and she has gone days without drinking.

She runs a finger around Hansol’s breasts, down her stomach, and leans in to press a kiss to the place where Hansol’s metal arm meets her shoulder. It’s an ugly thing, a mess of scar tissue and metal fastenings, not sexy in the least, but Chan settles feather-light kisses down the place it joins to her flesh, like she’s scattering sunbeams, like she thinks she’s lucky to be able to.

The thought is overwhelming enough that Hansol pulls her back up, kisses her long and deep until they’re both panting with it. Hansol rests her hands on the back of Chan’s neck, flesh hand tugging gently on the hair there.

Chan breaks the kiss with a groan, knocking her forehead against Hansol’s and smiles. It’s a motion that Hansol feels more than sees; they’re close enough that Chan’s lips brush against hers if she leans forward, even a little. 

She’s not sure which one of them initiates the movement, but they’re tipping over in the next moment, Hansol landing on her back, Chan with one hand keeping her suspended above her. Hansol laughs in delight, bubbles of something like joy fizzing in her veins. 

“You’re so…” Hansol says, trailing off. She places a hand against Chan’s cheek instead of continuing, marveling at the smile there. 

“I’m so?” Chan teases, leaning down to nip down Hansol’s neck. 

“You know.” Hansol says, breaking off as Chan’s hands slip down her sides, towards her spread legs. 

Something occurs to her, even as she desperately wants her to continue. “Wait.” Hansol says.

Immediately, Chan pulls back, hands lifting away. “What’s wrong?”

“Um.” Hansol pauses. Looks at the ceiling. Looks back at Chan. “I don’t exactly know what comes next.”

"You've never...?"

Hansol shrugs. It hadn't seemed like a big deal before, never came up until now. "No I haven't. And I want it to be good for you, you know?"

Chan grins, the briefest slice of sunlight. Takes Hansol’s hand, pulls it towards her. "Don't worry about that, I'll tell you what to do." She flips them over so Hansol is straddling her legs, and shimmies down her pants. 

And Hansol follows her, lets Chan guide her hand down between her legs. She pauses there for a second, and lets Hansol just explore, running her hand across the soft flesh of her inner thighs. She wants to bite them. Sets that impulse aside for later and leans down to kiss her again. "How...?"

"Like this," Chan says, two fingers moving slowly down and into her dripping folds. Hansol watches, eyes taking in everything she can.

It's nothing she hasn't done with herself, and yet seeing Chan finger herself sets something ablaze in her gut, molten embers and sparks. Chan runs over a spot that makes her shudder, and Hansol reaches forward without thinking. "Can I?"

Chan smirks at her. "Of course." Hansol replaces Chan's fingers with her own, pushing into the slick heat of her. With her metal hand, she runs fingers down Chan's side, just for the sheer pleasure of touching her.

When she's not sure where to go from there, Chan reaches forwards, pulling Hansol closer and whispers "Yes, yes. Like that, faster, _ please_," until her words dissolve into little choked-off noises, one hand tightening around Hansol's shoulder.

Hansol keeps watching her, cataloging the little expressions that wash across her face in waves, the noises she makes as Hansol changes her angle. She feels so close like this, any pretense of emotion washed away until all that remains is the two of them.

The thought comes to her as she kisses her again, that Chan could kill her. Death would be easy. A twist of the hand, simple a a lightning bolt to the spine. Hansol would die in seconds. It wouldn't even hurt. 

Fear has no weight here though. Not with the way that Chan's fingers are curled around her shoulder like it's a lifeline. Not with the way her throat is tipped back, sweat beading on the vulnerable skin there. Not with the way her voice sounds, cracking around Hansol's name.

When Chan takes her hands and shows her what feels good, how to crook her fingers against her walls, palm against her clit, Hansol takes note. Her voice sends a shiver down her spine and has her pressing her thighs together even as she leans down to fasten her mouth over one of Chan's nipples. 

"Exactly, _yes_ you're so good," Chan says, head curling forwards.

With a shudder she pulls Hansol's hand closer, tightening around her fingers with a moan. Aftershocks pass through her entire body, and Hansol moves slowly, working her through it. When Chan pulls back, there’s something deeply satisfied about her smile, and she threads her fingers through the hair at the nape of Hansol’s neck. “Like that, see. Now let me show you.”

Hansol nods, mouth gone dry. Chan brings her down for a kiss, teeth snagging the edge of Hansol’s mouth absently. The gesture sends sparks down Hansol’s spine, heat pooling between her thighs. Chan kisses her slow and deep, doesn't leave any room for Hansol to worry, takes her time with it. She pulls back and rolls them over, one hand cupped around Hansol's jaw. “Don’t worry, I’ll make you feel good.”

She makes more than good on that promise.

In the morning, when Hansol opens her eyes, Chan is already awake. She’s staring out the window, backlit by the rising sun. When Hansol makes a sleepy noise, she starts and turns around, almost surprised. 

“Good morning.” Hansol says.

Chan smiles. “Good morning.” 

Sunlight gilds Chan’s face, the mess of her hair, and Hansol has never felt more content than she is in this moment.

* * *

  
_ You’re starting to wake up, so I’ll make this quick. If everything goes well, this will be a stupid letter I can burn before you see it. If everything goes well you’ll never need this advice. I know better than to count on that, though. You are strong. You are brave. You are loved. Someday, I hope you find a gentler place, one that deserves you. _

_See lots of beautiful things, ok?_

_ Love, _

_ Joshua _

* * *

As spring finally arrives, Chan keeps looking east, staring at the sun as it rises over the mountains. She wakes early in the morning, eyes to the horizon. Hansol is busy with the garden, coming to life after winter’s rest, and only notes the pattern in passing.

When she’s not cleaning out winter debris, Hansol is adding compost to the soil, chasing off scavengers, and doing a thousand other things that seemed to have popped up overnight. Her tarps worked; the garden is ready for a new season of growth. It’s a relief and reassurance both, and the part of her that worried over what was _ Joshua’s _garden, relaxes.

Spring is a friend long awaited, and the garden rouses itself from Winter’s embrace. Hansol can smell green again, can go outside without her joints cracking like ice.

And then one day, Chan tells her she wants to leave.

“East. I need to see what happened.”

Hansol furrows her brow. She had wondered too, of course, what had happened to the world, to the war, but the thought of leaving the garden chills her. “Are you leaving soon?” It was so _ abrupt. _

Chan mouths something that looks like “are _ you_,” before shaking her head. “I don’t know. I just… when the world is out there, I have to see it.” 

Hansol struggles against the first thing that wants to come out of her mouth, and the second. 

“Didn’t you say you wanted to travel, too?” Chan asks. 

“Yes, but-” Hansol cuts herself off. There’s an impulse just to the right of her heart, calling her to answer. She wants to see the world. 

The way Chan smiles looks like it hurts. “I love it here, but I can’t stay. I would be unhappy and you deserve more than that. You deserve something lovely.”

The idea of leaving is a siren song but, “What about the garden?” It comes out as a whisper, something she’s been too afraid to say out loud before, but always present.

“I can’t.” Chan says. She closes her eyes. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight. Goodnight, Hansol.”

Words are tangled around her tongue, but Hansol manages to get out, “Goodnight, Chan.”

They don’t speak for the rest of the night.

That evening, just after Chan goes to sleep, Hansol picks up the box of ashes.

It’s both heavy and not, the weight of Joshua’s body reduced down to a 200 cubic inch box. Hansol has had a summer, fall, winter, and now spring to look at it, and still the pain hasn’t faded.

She’s grown used to it, though. Some days she can almost think of Joshua without wanting to crawl into the earth and never return. She can remember his favorite pranks to play on the other members of their squad, and how his eyes had sparkled in the sunlight. 

She can remember him as he was, not as a ghost hovering over her shoulder. 

Here is something she had forgotten until now: Joshua hated gardening. Whenever he had talked about the garden, it had been with an edge of wistful annoyance. The summers he had spent in it before being drafted were ones he recalled fondly, but with no desire to go back. To Joshua, the garden was a place to rest, not a place to live. It wasn’t a home.

For all the work that Hansol has put into the garden over the year, it was never her dream to settle here. She wants to travel, to see all the things she never had the chance to before. She wants, with a sudden and fierce clarity, to see Minghao's home among the mountains. 

There is a gentleness in her now, grown over the course of nearly a year. A gentleness that waits, a gentleness that wants. She can let herself dream of new horizons. Joshua would want her to. More than that, she wants to.

She puts the box back down and closes her eyes. Maybe moving on doesn’t have to mean letting go.

In the morning, Hansol wakes before sunrise and sets a pot of water to boiling. They ran out of flour a couple of weeks ago, but there's still enough tea stored in the pantry to last another three years. 

She’s just finishing up two servings of rice and duck eggs, when Chan walks into the kitchen. “Good morning.”

Hansol smiles, “Good morning.”

Chan raises a slow eyebrow at her, a silent question as to Hansol’s change in mannerisms. “Is this my last meal before you kick me out, then? I would have thought I rated more than rice and eggs.”

“I’m not kicking you out.” Hansol says.

“I’m going to leave eventually, though.” Chan returns, but she does take the plate that Hansol hands her.

“I know that, it doesn’t have anything to do with breakfast.” Hansol says. 

“Don’t you understand? I can’t stay here,” Chan says, gesturing at herself. “I need to see what’s out there.”

“I’m not kicking you out.” Hansol returns. “I’m coming with you.” She gets it now, the thing that had kept her here all through winter, all through spring. “You carry a home with you. The garden will wait. The world will not.”

Chan’s eyes are wide. Hansol continues, “Joshua wouldn’t want you to stay here if you didn’t want to. He wouldn’t want me to, either. I’m coming with you.”

When they kiss, it tastes like possibility. 

A month later, Hansol picks up the small handcart she had taken up the side of the mountain nearly a year ago. The garden has been pruned and put to rest, its various flowers and seedlings left to grow however they willed. 

The house stands empty, ready for someone else to live there. Perhaps someone will. Perhaps it will be the place some other lost soul needs, a place for them to stay and rest for a while. Perhaps Hansol will even come back herself, once she has seen her fill of the world. 

In the cart is enough food to last for a week and a steel box, 200 cubic inches wide. She looks next to her, and sees Chan, once again dressed in black leather. 

They’re headed to the sea, then to the mountains. After that, who knows?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love if you left a comment <3 I'm on twitter/cc @ lavenderim if you'd like to chat!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [here is where we used to be, here is where we are.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26223574) by [lushwang (theangryblob)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theangryblob/pseuds/lushwang)


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